Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Taxing Issues

One of the thing that makes the United States stand out in the civilized world is our willingness to butt in where we don't belong fully funding questionable countries and situations at the same time doing little to help those dealing with domestic natural, health or housing disasters. We allow mental illness to go untreated yet dump money into the eventual incarceration of the people with mental health issues.

It seems that America has lost it's way in regards to maintaining or rebuilding the infrastructure that once made us a great nation. Our highways and bridges are a mess. Our air traffic system is antiquated. Our power grid is vulnerable to all sorts of sabotage and mishaps.

Presently our nation would never be able to get the support it took to build the interstate high-way system. I doubt we would ever be able to have a project like one of the dam building projects. I doubt we would ever be able to build NASA from scratch.

I think the government is missing some great tax options that could restore this nation to what it once was when people were doing pretty well financially and they felt the US was a safe place to live and a land of opportunity.

We should legalize and tax marijuana. We should tax fire arm and ammunition purchases. Finally we should tax the churches.

Legalizing marijuana is a no-brainer because the majority of the population thinks it should be legal and when it it legal it will cost less to produce and distribute and even adding a tax it will cost less than it presently costs to obtain it.

Before you NRA kooks pop a nut you need to realize there is a federal department dedicated to alcohol, tobacco and fire arms of which alcohol and tobacco are taxed, why fire arms and ammo not taxed? The NRA wants gun laws to be enforced and they want to place armed guards in every school and they think mental health needs to be addressed... figures show that there were 16,808,538 gun applications in 2012 at the end of November. If gun purchasing loopholes were closed so that every purchase was taxed and tax each bullet we could easily raise billions every year. Instead of being annoyed by the constant sound of gun fire I hear while living out in the country, I could instead hear the the sound of tax money being made to support society. If we have a government agency with the word "fire arms" in its name we should be taxing all things fire arms to protect the integrity of the fire arms and those who use them.

Finally, the churches. The churches thrive in this country and they are protected under the constitution. They are free to pick up rattle snakes. They are free to sell flowers at the airports. They are free to publish and distribute their tracts. They are free to brainwash children and the weak minded. They are free to ignore science and dictate or at least strongly lobby public policy. They are free to picket funerals and create international incidents. They are free to have TV and radio stations. They are free to solicit funds and worship openly. All this freedom and they aren't paying a cent to the government that keep them free to behave like knuckleheads. I think it's high time they tithe 10% to the United States.

If these three taxes were initiated we could have universal health care; no one would be going without food or shelter in this country and our personal tax rates could fall. We could get the infrastructure back to where it should be and put people to work and provide social programs for those not wanting to have god shoved down their throats.

No, I like taxes when they are used for good society building practices in out country. It was the NRA that proposed armed guards in schools, their concerns should pay for it so they need to put their money where their mouth is.

If we want to cut spending, the only thing I'd cut is foreign aid to 25 countries which would bring home 71.2 billion and there are millions of Americans deserving of that sort of charity at home.

Churches have a sweetheart deal, and not taxing churches is taking an estimated $70 billion from our economy every year. Separation of church and state is not a reality. Laws should be revised to tax the income and huge accumulated wealth of all churches.

Let’s also tax individuals and entities who use bankruptcy to avoid paying income taxes on the cancelled debt that they have stuck others with.

The failure of the drug war is a massive drain on society. America needs to address the real problem -- addiction. We should be investing in the treatment of addiction, not paying law enforcement and corrections officers in a losing battle. The result will be more effective addiction treatment and less crime. Addiction is a disease.

The monetary cost to American taxpayers of the war on drugs is estimated at over $40 billion a year. Included in these costs are the police and court personnel used to arrest and prosecute drug users and traffickers, and the guards and other resources spent on imprisoning and punishing those convicted of drug offenses.

In addition to reducing expenditures on law enforcement and incarceration, legalizing illegal drugs would increase tax revenues. Increased tax revenue from drug legalization has been estimated at $47 billion a year.